A front structure of a conventional vehicle hood is shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. FIG. 5 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a vehicle, which illustrates the front structure 100 of the conventional vehicle hood. FIG. 6 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view, which illustrates a condition in which an impactor S collides with an outer surface of an outer panel 20 in FIG. 5. As shown in FIG. 5, the hood 10 includes an outer panel 20 that is gently curved leftwardly and downwardly in FIG. 5, and an inner panel 30 that is affixed to a front end of the outer panel 20. A striker 50 is attached to a flattened portion 33 of the inner panel 30. The striker 50 is capable of engaging a hood lock 40 provided to a vehicle body when the hood 10 closes an engine room. Also, a hood lock reinforcement 60 and a dent preventive reinforcement 90 are disposed between the outer panel 20 and the inner panel 30. The hood lock reinforcement 60 is intended to reinforce an attachment portion of the striker 50. The dent preventive reinforcement 90 is intended to prevent the outer panel 20 from denting when a normal load is applied to thereto from outside of the vehicle body. Both of the members 60 and 90 are connected to each other at end portions thereof by spot welding. Further, an upper portion of the dent preventive reinforcement 90 is bonded to the outer panel 20 via an adhesive member 80 which is referred to as a mastic sealer.
However, in the front structure of the conventional vehicle hood, the following problem has been pointed out. That is, in the front structure 100 of the conventional vehicle hood shown in FIG. 5, the dent preventive reinforcement 90 is connected to an upper surface of the hood lock reinforcement 60 in the form of a cover. As a result, as shown in FIG. 6, when a large impact load F is applied to an outer surface of the outer panel 20 from above, the outer panel 20 can be deformed and at the same time, the dent preventive reinforcement 90 can be deformed in an impact load application direction (a direction shown by arrow in FIG. 6). However, deformation of the dent preventive reinforcement 90 can be performed while an upper surface portion 90a thereof is flexed and tensed. Therefore, the deformation of the dent preventive reinforcement 90 in the impact load application direction is relatively small. Thus, the problem that has been pointed out is that in the front structure 100 of the conventional vehicle hood, displacement amount of the dent preventive reinforcement 90 in the impact load application direction is small.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to increase the displacement amount of the dent preventive reinforcement in the impact load application direction when the impact load is applied to the outer surface of the outer panel.